10/1/10
As I walked with Jesus to the gathering of light on God’s holy mountain I felt worried about my own ability to do as God wants of me. I remembered the time when Jesus took me into space and introduced me to great wise minds grouped around in a circle to receive me. I felt as if Jesus was telling them that I could do the job that was needed. Now, at this moment, I asked Jesus if I had disappointed him. Then I revised my question because of course I have disappointed him at some time or another. What I really wanted to ask was “Am I a disappointment to you?”
He answered that I was not. I perceived that that the reason I might feel as if I had dissatisfied him was because of time, I am always in a hurry and Jesus never hurries. Jesus acts as if he has all the time in the world, as if all will be well if we give it enough time, as if whatever my job was, in time, I will do it. Ah, if we could all be so eloquent with our own demands.
I also realized something as we walked. No mater what the truth is about the different levels of being and where we stand as souls, or humans, or sparks of matter, I feel a deep and abiding trust in God to direct this movie or play in which I am living. As long as I have a place in God’s mind, I will always be well. Even death cannot bind me because death is an illusion that I will walk through into some other part of life. Death cannot hold me because my trust in God is deep and in God there is only life.
After all these thoughts of trust and love, I came back to the idea that I might disappoint Jesus.
So I asked him, “What would you have me do?”
“Do what you want to do.” Jesus answered.
Jesus was giving me back the trust I felt for God. God trusts me to do what is right. God—trusts—me?
As I realized the truth of it, light filled my body from head to feet, I walked the rest of the way to the gathering enclosed in a bubble of light.
When we
joined in the gathering, with thousands of hands clasped in love and wonder, I
felt a bubble of light expand to fill each of us gathered there. Then as light
rolled across the world we each went our separate ways to send out more light.
I visualized the light as huge bubbles
that I could send where I chose. I chose to step over to
People need food, I said into the huge bubble, and then “There will be enough food for everyone.”
As I said this, Jesus spoke to me saying, “You can only help one small group at a time.”
I felt relief from my struggle at his words, I would like to help vast numbers of people but can’t. I fail when I try to do too much and so must limit my help. With Jesus words I realized my limits and felt relief about it. Yes, we can only do so much, but what is important is in the doing.
10/2/10
I have been thinking about our definitions of God and how limited they seem to be. We tend to suppose that God exists as the whole universe or as a personal God but not both. This puts a limit on God that we should not impose. God fills the universe with mind but at the same time can become any of his creations, a human or cow or other. Why should we dispute this? Well, it isn’t easy to wrap our minds around the concept of God stepping into small shoes. I keep trying to find an analogy for what I understand God to be and can’t easily. The closest I come to an analogy is God as the ocean and we as the fish swimming within it. This idea only comes close to what I mean if we understand that the blood that flows through the fish is also ocean. In other words God hovers without and within, is at once the whole ocean and a molecule of salty water. Jesus shows himself to me as a man in spirit form, but I know he is much more.
I remember when Jesus took me into space to visit the group of wise spirits or leaders (we have no words to describe beings above ourselves but less than God) Jesus spoke to them as if he were a member of this superhuman group floating in the starry universe. One of their number leading a small human for them to see. I think I get a glimmer of why and it has to do with our travels and the gathering on God’s holy mountain. What ever the reason, Jesus at that moment, behaved, not as a God but as a superhuman in spirit form who chose to speak to other super humans. I got the impression that he was presenting his case before them and I was the example. Example of what? I believe an example of what humans can and will do in the future with their minds, that we were capable of raising above the mundane to great heights. I hadn’t yet, but with Jesus encouragement I was learning and I am still learning. As I have written before, God believes in our ability to become, God as Jesus, God as a super spirit, God as Father, and God as Universe. We should be very thankful that we are such a delight to God and well thought of, else we might have perished long ago.
10/3/10
I finally deciphered what makes Father Thomas’s sermons so good; he always lifts people up. He always begins with the gospel and then broadens it in ways that brings out the best of people, acting as if we had already begun walking down the holy road to heaven. This morning he spoke of how the apostles wanted to know about faith and what faith was and how it was related to who we are: children of God. That we don’t earn faith or buy it. The nugget of faith is within us because we are all made in the image of God which makes us holy.
10/8/10
Love is in the giving. I realized this once again this morning as I stood with other people, some from the future, holding hands and singing praises to God. The light of God built up within us and in the center of our circle, then we turned and sent the light outwards onto the whole of earth. As I watched the light-energy given us from God roll away in huge waves, I realized, once again, the importance of this part of the gathering. Without us sharing the light with other people, what good would it be? That is the whole purpose of God’s gift, to share the light energy with those who might be in need of it at this time, those who’s soul is hungry for food, those who feel saddened and in need of uplift, those in emotional trauma and in need of a hug of love.
Certainly, it would be valuable if I could actually be present physically to help a person in need, but most often that isn’t possible, and when it is, the moment of concern can become awkward. So it works well, at least for me, to put my spiritual arms around a person or send God-light into them as I stand nearby in a spirit body, or to watch the wave of light roll over a neighborhood and know souls are being nourished. As an artist, my faith is revitalized each time I see in visual terms God’s light rolling over a countryside or filling the air around a person like they are standing in a glorious soap bubble. I can’t give much in money or even friendship because I don’t know many people, but in this way, the way Jesus taught me, I have learned how to give meaningful food to the world.
This is why we say that God is good and benevolent, in spite of the bad events that happen. God gives constantly. We are alive because of God energy, the trees grow, birds sing, dogs run because the world is filled with energy, created and kept viable by God. I breathe because God has created a system that keeps me alive God shares in each moment I live just as I share and am a part of God’s love. Perhaps without my life, (all life in the universe) God would be less. We are deeply loved by God and all of heaven.
10/11/10
I am coming to feel disenchanted with our system of government. True, there may not be another better system to adhere to, there may not even be a better example to use as reference, but what we have now seems to have reverted to barbarism, black slapping, pocket padding, favoritism and many other negative qualities. I certainly don’t advocate getting rid of what we have, but certainly we could work towards a better system? Right now, that seems to be the last thing most leaders or the people want. It is so easy to fall into selfishness and self-centeredness. Most easy when you have as the main goal, as our system does, only power and monetary gain. Surly, there is a better way, a better goal for a government to reach out towards, some better means of accomplishing wellbeing for everyone. But perhaps we humans are still too primitive to understand that we are all in this together.
A change is needed, history proves that. In the past, governments fell because of the self centeredness of its leaders, they stomped and squashed the serfs until a small spark set the bottom to rise up. The French revolution was a good example. Instead of squashing people, our government should be raising them up. After all, we are supposed to have a government of and for the people, all the people, not just the rich and powerful.
A good start would be with our elected leaders. Their pay should be based on the average of the people they represent. We should move towards pride of accomplishment and workmanship rather than monetary rewards. Most of our culture now drives people towards the belief that money is great and more money is greater, when the truth is that everyone needs enough, but not much more than that. It is hard to imagine an earthly system without money as its base of commerce, but I have been on worlds where money is not used, quiet, pleasant, peaceful worlds. Well, we have a long way to go before we could achieve that, but a good start might be more equitable wages, or at least, a living wage for everyone.
10/17/10
I thought I might do a painting of Jesus showing me the universe and I realized it had been so long a time since I had traveled with him, I forgot what it looked like. So he laughingly agreed to take me to see an arraignment of orange stars because that is the color I want in the painting.
It may seem odd that there can be such a place, but as Jesus told me once,” Anything you can imagine to exist already does.”
I assume from his statement that the variety and abundance of stars in the universe almost assures that any form is out there somewhere, and since we have no need to consider space and time in our instantaneous travels, it is probably easy for Jesus to show me anything I want to see.
This day we stood before a blaze of stars with a wide strip of orange below a purple cloud with black and red and every color one could imagine along with it, even peacock. Amazing, but there was even a group or stars of cloud made out of something that blazed in a light, neon green.
“Why can’t we see this from earth?” I asked Jesus.
He told me and the two friends who also came with us on this journey today that earth sits inside a dark cloud and this hides many of the universe's true colors.
The Hubble telescope has penetrated the cloud of darkness, but even so, what we stood looking at was truly strange and unusual. The cloud of neon green was shaped like a side view of a rose bud.
Jesus smiled as I noticed this. He'd deliberately showed us this view so we would be pleased and amazed. I remembered a photo from the Hubble that looked like a rose from one point of view, but something else from another, so I guess a rose bud wasn’t impossible, nor the orange ribbon running below that I could almost see as a ribbon tying it together. Well, not really, but it was fun to imagine.
Regardless, I won’t be able to paint this view and give it the vividness it deserves, so I may not do that painting after all.
Since we were already traveling, we asked Jesus to take us to another planet. In an instant, we were there and the first thing we saw were plopping things that opened their mouths and closed them again, over and over. The plants or animals were sticking out of an orange mud lake. There was a whole field of these things edged in the distance by green fauna. Perhaps it was a swamp. Then we saw a lithe, bright, yellow person jumping in the distance. We went nearer to look and saw that the person was jumping from leaf to leaf. The leaves lay on top of the mud water a lotus leaf. As we stood watching, we saw that the being, half our size, carried a hunting implement in its hand so understood it to be intelligent. In shape, it looked very much like a small human painted yellow, but it's face was slightly different with big round eyes and its nose seemed strange. More than that I couldn't pick up on. Except that it was very lithe and quick.
Jesus said, “Its size is the same as the short jungle people on earth.” He showed us an image of the yellow monkey like thing the person had evolved from, but I can’t describe it.
We next went into a village with numerous houses. One house was made of large banana leaves but there was a large area of purple bushes or trees in the yard next to it. A number of the yellow people were outside and we watched as one yellow person carried a black, slug thing on its back and brought it to the group who took it inside.
This looked like very primitive behavior so I asked Jesus if there were cities on this planet. He told us there were and showed us a few. Not cities like on earth, he said. The cities here are more like towns spread out between forests. We saw this for ourselves as we hovered high above the tree tops.
We saw that their buildings were not over large but watched some yellow workers climbed over and around the frame of a large construction they were erecting.
Jesus showed us the wood they were using. “See, he said, “It looks like wood on earth.” Then he reached down and pointed to a single leaf. It also looked like a common leaf on earth, fish shape with veins running off a main stem. He has told us many times, not only that earthlike planets abound in the universe, but they all have similar fauna, animals and intelligent beings living on them.
This world had more land than earth and we understood that the people were not as warlike as we humans.
I asked Jesus if they had computers.
Jesus answered, “They don’t need computers. They never allowed technology to drive their culture.”
I understood from this that they use their mind better then we do. We earthlings have concentrated on material things while many other people concentrate on mental agility and powers. Except for a few, mostly in the East, we have ignored such learning.
I nodded to the others than I was ready to leave. I can only take so much new sights before I get tired and I wanted to write this visit down while it was still fresh in my mind. Even so, as I write this, I can’t help wondering if I forgot something we saw or something that Jesus said to us. The images and words run fast because the mind is so quick when there is no need to be physical. It me takes twice as long to write our visit down as it does to witness it.
I don't remember watching how the people worshiped God and I wonder now if it was because they live their worship.
Now I remember what I forgot. I had asked Jesus if this was a paradise world. He said it wasn’t, that it was in the middle between earth and a paradise world.
What makes this world different? What makes us so different? Why can’t we be better?
My rhetorical cry of woe to Jesus reflected my worry about the future of our world because of how we are treating it.
Jesus told us that earth truly was a problem. He implied that much work needed to be done and that was all he would say, except to remind us that we are deeply loved.
As I write this I cringe that I almost forgot to write that last conversation that was most important and wonder what else I have forgotten on other occasions. Perhaps nothing too important. I only know that many times Jesus repeats his statement that earth is complex, we are troubled, and we are deeply loved because of it as if heaven grins and bares the trials we present to them.
10/20/10
Jesus tells me we always have a choice. I was thinking about what sent people down the wrong road, most especially the young children, the teens that suddenly get in a rage and kill someone and spend the rest of their life in jail. They are just kids, I complain to Jesus. What happened? What can we do?
This is when he explained that each of us make a million choices throughout our lives and some of those choices can turn us down the wrong road.
What about a den of thieves, as an example,” I asked him. "What if a person grows up in a group like that and doesn’t know any better than to steal for survival. What about that person?"
Jesus said, “You have heard the phrase, Honor among thieves?”
I nodded that the phrase was familiar.
He said, “Doesn’t even the thief have the choice to be kind or unkind to his brothers?"
I thought about this for a minute and smiled my understanding. I realized that to Jesus and all of heaven, honor, goodness and truthfulness towards others form the bases for the ideal person. So even though a person grows up among thieves and knows no other way of life, that person will still will have moments to choose whether to act kind or not to fellow thieves. From this it follows that we sink or fall according to our relationships with other people because we live in society, in a culture that requires everyone's input. I think I am saying this badly. Jesus said it better, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
It turns out that each of us are walking either towards heaven or away from it at any given time. We can turn back, if we choose, but the further along the road we get, the harder this becomes. I am thankful that Jesus took me by the hand and directed my walk towards heaven.
He tells me, “You chose it yourself. At any point, you could have walked backwards.”
This also works with ideas. It is up to us how we chose to understand them. Jesus told me that the words God said to me, “Heaven isn’t what you think,” could have had different interpretations. I chose to blame my own faulty thinking as the cause of God’s words, my feelings of sorrow and agony for starving children and thoughts that the whole world should end to ease their plight. What God really showed me that night was an expression of love for all of us on earth that superseded all else. Also that God truly does listen to us when we call out to him.
I’ll say this, the event of God appearing to me was so spectacular that I have never forgotten it, and if God appeared to other people with that same power and they then misunderstood God’s words or believed incorrectly, I can understand their devotion, their drive backwards, perhaps even to sponsoring suicide. I shudder at the thought that all that divides me from those misguided killers, is that I understood God’s words to reflect a deep love for all humanity, not merely for a select few. I now wonder, is this how God will finally divide the wheat from the shaft.
10/25/10
Last night I watched a program about the universe, reenactments of its beginning and views from the Hubble telescope. I thought about the time Jesus and Mary took me to view The Source. I have since wondered if it was similar to the Big Bang, but I don’t think they are comparable; what I witnessed seemed not to be a beginning at all but something ongoing. It was more than I can figure out and I have decided to leave it at that. This morning, God took me on a tour of the universe and this also perplexed and challenged me. I am still trying to figure it out.
As I watched the program last night, I asked Jesus, “It seems impossible that God could have created something so vast and yet speak to mere humans? How can this be?”
I thought it was like one of us commutating with a virus, or trying to. Yet, God, this super being of enormous power has communicated with humans throughout history. God does take notice. Could this same God do both? Last night, I got the impression that God delights in our little thoughts and lives whether we can believe it or not. During meditation this morning, I saw as from far off, the whole world, the universe, everything bundled up in a single sphere in which everything was moving and changing and glowing with light.
Jesus, as God, walked me into the sphere. It was made up of galaxies and stars and dust but it looked far different than what I'd watched on the science program because this universe didn't have any darkness, no visible dark matter.
I asked, “Where is the dark matter?”
God said, “You are standing on it.”
Perhaps what we call dark matter is really the ground of being for God. I was standing on a golden surface, surrounded on all sides by a gold mist that shimmered in greens and blues and reds and all the colors of the rainbow. As we walked further into the universe, the dark, that my mind kept insisting should be there, would show up for a moment then revert back to white-gold. The whole universe glowed so pure, it made the stars look dim. And then I saw the same lace of galaxies I’d seen on the science program but this time not a collection of red dots but small glowing dots, hard to see against the lighted background. The whole was filled with smudges in every range of color imaginable.
This universe we live in was like a summer garden in full bloom, a field of blossoms beneath wallowing in bright sun. Then I saw it once again filled in with darkness, as if the dark matter had returned, but everything was slowly moving as if turned by a breath of air, eddies stirred and the lacey galaxies and mist turned around. What looks almost static to us, unmoving, moves for God in a constant dance of action and reaction. It was like looking at a computer simulation of time. I understood that this dance will go on forever, or certainly longer than we know.
As I tried to send my imagination beyond the space time of this universe, God said, “That is enough for now.”
I breathed out a huge sigh and agreed. The sound of the rosary played out just then and I was glad because my mind was tired and too full of wonders.
Jesus said, “Write down what you have seen.”
As I write this, I am afraid I can't do justice to all that I saw. We had actually stretched out our hands and reached into the orb of star filled galaxies as if the whole universe was no more than an image on a three dimensional screen, and then we walked into it. When I waved my hand, I was pleased to note that my presence make no effect at all, so maybe we did walk into a hologram, or an illusion of symbols, or the real dream.
Once again I wonder how and why such a majestic God can bother with such a small person as myself or any of us. If anyone wants a mystery, it seems to me that God's love and concern for us is the biggest mystery of all.
There is one more thing we discussed that I hesitate to bring up. It is the question of evil. I asked about evil and got the impression of universal anti-pressure, a darkness, a antagonist to push against, a leak, a mere temporary obstruction. God tells me not to worry about evil, that "All will be well.” And I assume God means that eventually all life will fall to his open arms, that nothing is wasted, everything has a purpose, even sin, even darkness, even beings of darkness. I smile as I write this. We know the outcome, it is the middle that confounds.
10/29/10
The last time I had meditated, God told me to disregard evil which, contrarily, made me start thinking about it more. Perhaps because every time I start my car and drive, I listen to the latest lecture on The Philosophy of Religion disks that I bought from The Learning Company, and the current one and the next six are about The Question of Evil. I listened to it years ago too and it is a great series of lectures, but after 36 lectures, I forgot most of what I learned. Still, regardless of the many arguments for and against God, I still know there is a God, but this is easy for me because I have had a number of immediate experiences of God. So lately, as I toss around with the idea of evil in the world, even though I shouldn’t, like the millions of other people asking the same question, I wonder the why of evil. After I finish a few more lectures, I may be able to answer that question and write it here. Not sure.
Jesus has said something to me yesterday as I prayed that gave me pause. During meditation my mind kept getting stuck on a new church group, new for me. I kept tossing the idea around in my head about a writing workshop for children, not easy to do because the groups agenda has already been approved. A puppet show was mentioned and I would like to help lead the children in writing a story for it, but even more, I want it to be a religious story based on Jesus, a saint, angel or some other bible figure. I would be in my element, but the need to talk people into it is not. The worry was weighing on me because I am not good at that kind of persuasion. In other words, the whole idea will be hard for me to push forward.
It was then that Jesus said something common but amazing.
He said, “Anything worth achieving is hard.”
As I thought about it, I looked at all the things that did get done in our world but took great effort on someone’s part. Yes, everything that is worth doing is hard to do and perhaps it should be. I will mention it at the next meeting, and if not this year, then maybe we can do the program in the next.
This idea also jumped me to a whole new line of thought. I thought back to those times when I needed to send my husband to Crossroads for free food, to the time when I didn’t have a car, to when I didn’t know where my next paycheck was coming from, to the time when I felt so discouraged I didn’t want to go on, but did. Now I look back all that trauma and pain and realize it was hard to get through but a necessary part of my education. Without those experiences I might not sympathize with a person who needs a job or food or shelter. I can understand that person’s problem because I went through something similar.
Jesus intends for us to learn. He didn’t lift me up every time fell or faced horrible odds. (Although he did step in one night when a man pointed a gun at me and my family) Now, in my twilight years, I can understand why. This makes me wonder about evil in general and maybe gives us a glimmer of God’s purpose in allowing it. Some adversity is good for us, whether we understand it or not. Perhaps all of life is meant to be a trial and error period before we move onward. It is just a thought, but Jesus smiles so I must be on the right track.
Speaking of evil, how did it take
over
My emotions got the better of me and I called out to Jesus, “Were were you?”
With a little thought, and with Jesus at my side as I sat in the chair, smiling and waiting patiently until I figured it out, I realized that Jesus was there, he was with Father Flattery and each of the thousand of others who risked their own lives to help people. He was with the people who ran the underground railroad during slavery. Even now, he is with those company leaders who hire workers during these bad times. He is with those who feed the hungry and care for the helpless. As he told us once, he is the one who is hungry and thirsty. Jesus is everywhere.
10/30/10
This morning, as I walked with Jesus we talked about the effectiveness of God’s light energy.
Is it doing enough? I can reach out to poor people and maybe open their hearts, but that isn’t going to help their jobless situation, I complained. Maybe today I will send light energy into the business and political leaders. Maybe more will learn to give.
Jesus said, “Teaching someone to give more is the greatest gift of all.”
Wonderful words that picked up my spirits until I danced over the rocks and tiny flowers. Sometimes I worry that prayers don’t do enough good, but now, today, I was determined to send God’s energy into the most influential people. Perhaps they would learn to give and share more, perhaps a business leader would convince workers to take a pay cut so they could hire more people, perhaps politicians would arrange it so companies would be encouraged to hire more, perhaps the most wealthy would agree to earn less so that many could earn more, or at least, something. Well I knew that would be my prayer this morning. 0
As we got closer, I saw the group aglow from far off and felt great joy to be
meeting with people of God. We joined hands and a few young people joined us and I wanted to show them how to walk across the land shinning God’s light like a small wind. I took them to the mountain peak so they could feel the strong wind blow against them and this was exciting.
Then back in the circle, God filled each of us with amazing energy and the children lifted their arms up in joy. Then I suggested that we could send out this energy that now filled us to other people. I could see the excitement in their eyes at this idea. So we did began walking across the land sending out God energy. I realized as we walked that children are natural God-light emitters, they already glow most of the time. Eventually, we met up with the mind of a whale who was doing the same thing in the ocean. This delighted the children even further.
On my part, I did do as I promised Jesus I would do. I went to leaders and sent them energy from God. I couldn’t go to everyone, of course, so picked I chose one or two as representative. It feels good to feed souls even if the people don’t notice. But like the people I was sending light to, I need to learn to give more too. I will try.
One other thing happened this morning that is just as vital. As I showed the children to walk and send out prayer, Jesus said, “Yes, teach them to become angels.”
His words astounded me for a moment, but, of course, he was right, it is these children who are the people of the future. It is they who will save our civilization if it is to be saved. They are the ones who I dedicate all my writing to. They are the ones who will define tomorrow.